The Real Pokémon Theme Park: A Look Back

With the news of a Nintendo collaboration with Universal Studios, many fans are excited for the theme park possibilities. Will there be a Mario Kart ride? How about a Pokémon one? Well, 10 years ago, there was an entire amusement park in Japan dedicated to Pocket Monsters.

Dubbed Pokémon The Park 2005 (and, like the future Wii game, called "PokéPark" for short), the temporary theme park was only opened for a limited time. Located in Nagoya, it kicked off in March 2005 and ended its run that September. The following year, a limited-time-only PokéPark opened in Taiwan in June and wrapped up on September 24.

Over on 2ch, net users have been looking back at Pokémon The Park 2005 by posting pictures and commenting how fun it all looked. Remember, this theme park wasn't designed to be permanent, so think of it as a travelling fair. With Pocket Monsters. How cool is that?

Originally released on November 27th, 1998 in Japan, the Dreamcast was a shot at redemption after Sega's last console, the Saturn, had a less than stellar time competing with the Playstation and Nintendo 64. Something had to change in order for Sega to keep a horse in the console race. The Dreamcast had it all: incredibly powerful graphics, online capability through dial up, and a playful take on media. Hell, the memory card, also known as the Visual Memory Unit (or VMU) had a screen built into it. Sega was here to play and they did it wonderfully.